The Half Ashed Cigar Forum

More from today...

Love it ! Keep him honest, Mike.

Great posts. Did you get a picture of him doing his polar bear plunge in NY Day?


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A coin Kip found and datedback to the early 1500s and a slab of copper he found with his trusty metal detector.

Did some grocery shopping and found these little treats. The wine translates as "Little Assholes." Hmmm... Wine that tastes like butt. What could be better?

A couple of food things to start today. First, fruit is way better down here, not having near the acidity we get up north. Bananas, plantains, pineapples, kiwi, etc. Second is to remember to check on foods with which you are unfamiliar before chowing down. The long root vegetable shown is yuca (not yucca). Its rather potato like, white inside and a little more starchy, and treated similarly to potatoes in cooking techniques. I tried a few small slices raw when we got back from the store. When i mentioned to Kip that it was pretty good, his eyes widened a bit and said that some of these can be poisonous. "I guess we'll find out!" I replied. After a late evening of some mild intestinal distress and a bout of insomnia, i Googled it this morning. Yep. This root contains small amounts of cyanide, esp when grown in dry or drought conditions, which kinda matches down here. So, i basically (but very mildly) poisoned myself yesterday. Way cool... Dumb ass!

And yes, i am totally fine...

This late AM we traveled to Cien Fuegos, a pretty economically depressed area (with all of the expected issues of any poor, urban area) where Kip is teaching English this semester (and last fall). Their team meets at a very small church to plan basic curriculum ideas. The folks involved seem very caring and dedicated to helping the youth there. They also began the meeting with about 15 minutes of prayers and testimonials before the business started. Eventually, I was asked to say something and i managed to stumble through some semi-coherent sentences which they seemed to appreciate greatly. Afterward, it was back home dor cigars, food, and beverages.

Hanging at Kip's house this afternoon and eve where we chilled with cigars and our friend William gave an impromptu guitar lesson to Kip's son, Kaleb.

Hung out at La Fabrica cigar shop today and picked up a dozen unkown (to me) smokes.

We are not having much success when we go out in finding Dominican cuisine places open. We stopped at two places that would have fit the bill nicely, but one was closed (1:30PM, possibly for good but open just last week) and one wasn't serving until 5:00. So we went to a small sushi shop (very Dominican, right?) and had an... Okay lunch. Fish was fine but there was a general sweetness that was odd. Supper was a pan of roasted vegetables (and some COOKED yuca) I put together and some awesome deep-fried chicken Kip made. The light fixture would even more cool if the spigot handle worked as a dimmer switch.